What a difference a day makes! The Giants scored early and late to back a dominant team pitching performance and The Kap did a pretty good job of managing to boot. Key Lines:
Lamonte Wade Jr 1B- 1 for 2, 2 BB. BA= .269. LMWJ just keeps getting on base from the top of the batting order. .500 OBP.
Joc Pederson DH- 1 for 3, 2B, BB. BA= .242. The Giants have their own doughy-bodied lefty masher. Joc doubled in the first two runs of the game in the first inning after Wade Jr and Conforto reached base with walks.
David Villar 2B/3B- 1 for 4, HR(3). BA= .235. Villar gave the Giants some breathing room with an 8'th inning 2-run HR after YtY's double.
Brandon Crawford SS- 1 for 3, HR(2), BB. BA= .206. Crawford followed Villar's blast with one of his own. He still has his moments.
Alex Wood LHP- 4.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 5 K. ERA= 1.17. What is your over/under on how many times Wood gets out of the 5'th inning this year. Hey! 4.2 shutout innings are not nothing. If Wood makes 30 starts and averages 4 IP with an ERA in the 2's. We and the Giants will take that.
Scott Alexander LHP- 0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 0.00. Great move by Kap to bring in the lefty Alexander to face Outman with the bases loaded and 1 out. Outman dribbled one in front of the plate. Blake Sabol started to go after it then had the presence of mind to get back to home plate. Alexander shoveled the ball to him for the force out at home. Alexander then struck out the light-hitting SS Rojas and I think the Dodgers miss Trea Turner a lot.
John Brebbia RHP, Tyler Rogers RHP and Camilo Doval RHP closed out the last 3 innings without breaking much of a sweat. It was a non-Save situation for Doval with the 5-run lead.
The Win improves the Giants record to 5-6 but they remain in 4'th place 0.5 games behind the 6-6 Dodgers. The D'Backs and Padres are tied for first place at 7-5 and the Rockies bring up the rear of the NL West at 5-7. Yes, it's still early.
Alex Cobb RHP tries for a series win against The Hated Ones tomorrow evening facing Clayton Kershaw LHP.
Definitely give credit to the bullpen in this one. All relievers pitched well, but Tyler Rogers had the Dodgers' heart of the order off balance. He threw 11 of 15 pitches for strikes with one strikeout.
ReplyDeleteIt was nice to knock-around Carrot Top a little bit. He has been up there with Urias as a Giant killer with his 0.79 ERA against the Giants.
ReplyDeletePulling Wood in the 5th is the only realistic choice if you want to win with him as a pitcher. Wood is very-good his first two times through the order. Third time through is a problem as he gets hammered: .941 OPS in 2022. .890 in 2021 and 1.572 in 2019...
With yet another error, the Giants are tied for 27th in total errors (8) and rate of errors. It is inescapable that bad defensive teams, regardless of offense, don't win WS with just three crap-defense winning it in the entire history of the majors. And that was a long time ago.
So home runs are great and put butts in the seats. But when we were a playoff contender and winning those championships, we had excellent defense, and that defense was significant in our playoff runs.
You can't call Joc doughy body anymore. He's changed his diet and lost some weight. LOL! Good win last night, hopefully Cobb can put it together and get strong outing.
ReplyDeleteThe RH lineup Monday vs Urias looked impotent, maybe Haniger will change that?
ReplyDeleteLaMonte Wade has figured it out! At least so far. If you strike out a lot, don't hit very well and without power, and your "D" is spotty, what do you have to do to play: get-on-base!
ReplyDeletePlus his K-rate is coming down (avoid swinging at bad pitches?) and his defense has improved a lot (keep working on it).
As long as the Giants get enough power – HR's – from other positions, they can apparently carry a 1B without a long ball but gets on base a lot.
Next homestand, with Slater coming back to take the RHB share of CF and Haniger augmenting LF (and giving Conforto some days off in RF), it could get even better: a couple high OBP players (Wade/Estrada) ahead of the power (Conforto/Pederson/Villar) should score some runs, at least when not facing Ace pitching.
And perhaps Webb, after facing off with Cole, Cease, and Urias, will get a break in Detroit (Mathew Boyd) and not Alcantara in Miami. Unfortunately, he's likely to see Scherzer when the Mets come to SF.